LINKDROP #2

Empathy

On staying quiet - Very sad that these are the thoughts that women often have about working in technology and about speaking up:

So, I know I’ve been a little bit off my game this week, I haven’t been sleeping well because we live in a world where women are being threatened and driven from their homes for having and expressing opinions and I’m just waiting and wondering when I’ll be next, making plans for what I would do if I got doxxed, maybe debating shutting down my twitter account and not doing any more public speaking and maybe quitting the industry entirely because maybe I should just quit while I’m ahead. You know, that sort of thing. As one does... I stay quiet because talking about the fear and the exhaustion makes me feel vulnerable and I’d much rather just pretend I’m a badass 100% of the time.

Security

...security threats are becoming more distributed. As a result, companies have to think about security at every level of the network – from servers to endpoints and everywhere in between. Companies are also shifting their focus from protecting borders to securing data. As attack vectors abound, a new generation of security companies, like Ionic Security, Illumio, and Bromium, has emerged to meet the new nature of cyber threats.

ffs ssl - A funny, but true, look at what it takes to do "eh tee tee pea esss"

Let's assume that your local machine isn't rooted and that your server isn't rooted and that your hosting provider isn't rooted, because that would invalidate everything. Oh what so the NSA and the five eyes have an ongoing program to root servers?

If you've upgraded to Mac OS X Yosemite (10.10) and you're using the default settings, each time you start typing in Spotlight (to open an application or search for a file on your computer), your local search terms and location are sent to Apple and third parties (including Microsoft).

Good system security requires multiple layers. It isn't enough to use software, like Apache, mod_ssl, and OpenSSL, which have no presently known vulnerabilities, and upgrade them whenever vulnerabilities are found. Designing secure systems requries accepting that security vulnerabilities will be found -- and exploited before they can be fixed -- and putting components together in such a way as to minimize the potential impact of such vulnerabilities.

General

And so, hypothetical reader, I say it again: learn to code. Learn enough nerd jokes to pass within the profession. Make some money. Pay off your debts and save or invest everything else. Spend twenty years telling everyone you have your dream job, then leave it and go and pursue your real dreams. Get yours and get out.

Not all aggressive, intimidating, or controlling individuals are worth tasseling with. Your time is valuable, and your happiness and well-being are important. Unless there’s something important at stake, don’t expend yourself by trying to grapple with a person who’s negatively entrenched. Whether you’re dealing with an angry driver, a pushy relative, or a domineering supervisor, keep a healthy distance, and avoid engagement unless you absolutely have to.

Go

What a developer might perceive as under-engineering in Go is actually an explicit decision designed to avoid accidental complexity. Rather than diving into language features that exhibit this quality, I will focus on two aspects of the languages tooling that stand in stark contrast to the nightmarish tooling that is typical of languages today.